UKC

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-25365786

will change the view from Sron a Choire Ghairbh a bit i reckon

In reply to rallymania:



Especially , if they also stick a farm of a wind Turbines up there to power the pumps

I also like the way they say that it:-
"will have the 'potential ' to provide up to 10% of Scotland's estimated peak electricity demand."

Indeed!
For how long ? ( the water runs out)

It is the same vagueness in reporting as the recent announcement on the Tiree farm that will not now be built, the news reader was fed the line, that :-

"It would have had up to 300 turbines and a 'capacity 'of up to 1800MW, enough to power one million homes."

Aye, if they all ran at the optimum efficiency, 24 hours a day 365 days a year perhaps.

Or maybe they meant 'eventually' would generate enough to power 1million homes , (assuming a load factor of about 25%, it could take a while. )

Who feeds them these vague and misleading phrases I wonder.

In reply to Jim C:

So we want renewables.. but no wind turbines in the mountains where there is wind.. no hydro by hills... no nuclear.. no tides where wading birds go... no gas.. no coal..

Yet you want to snipe away on a computer...

In reply to IainRUK:

Reminds me of a "say no to wind turbines" banner I saw a while back, someone had graffitied on the bottom, "say yes to coal"

In reply to IainRUK:



Yes, and pump storage is the one thing that is needed to use the random supply from renewables

In reply to Sharp:


We have some uber-nimbies near me with a whole load of signs saying 'Say no to solar plant', that takes some beating!

In reply to IainRUK:


Like!

In reply to rallymania:



Some one mentioned to me that there were plans to extend Cruachan dam. but I can't find anything about that, anyone know of any such plans? ( could be nonsense )

In reply to Jim C:


That's a bit harsh! The whole point of pumped storage is to cope with peaks & troughs in demand (and, increasingly, in supply), so the maximum output matters. It's very difficult to quickly ramp up & down the power produced by the baseload generators (coal & nuclear). You can fire up gas stations in something like 20 minutes (maybe less these days) but that's still not quick enough to cope with sudden spikes. Hydro can go from nothing to full power in a few seconds so is ideal for helping the grid manage supply & demand.


The capacity of the farm is known at design stage; the actual output is more uncertain. No surprise that the firm number is quoted rather than the uncertain one. And it's hardly misleading when everyone knows that the wind is variable (although your 25% capacity factor is a bit pessimistic!).

For the periods when the farm would have been operating at full load, would you rather those million homes were powered by burning fossil fuels instead?

In reply to Jim C:

>> will change the view from Sron a Choire Ghairbh a bit i reckon


A dam and a reservoir will spoil your day out? Turbines are an eyesore? Maybe but they can also be taken down (and it will be in the EIA that they are,) once they are no longer needed. So if you really want to change something, get keen on nuclear fusion and energy storage, so that we can put the turbines in the windy uninhabited places of the world. Moaning about steps in the right direction doesn't help!

Someone should look at turbines on the kilpatricks, wind there this morning was brutal!

In reply to jonnie3430:


In the right locations, wind turbines and pumped storage seem like the perfect marriage. Having said that, while I'm yet to see a wind farm which bothers me, I find the hydro devastation of the Glens a sad eyesore.


No, put them in the (probably slightly less windy) inhabited places; surround the cities with them, put one on the top of every tall building, line every motorway with them. These places are already a man-made urban landscape and the required infrastructure would presumably be much less intrusive and costly.

In reply to jonnie3430:




They already have applied to put them there, I can see these hills from my garden, I'm not overly fond of them, but still would not put turbines on them.

In reply to Neil Adams:
I work in the energy sector Neil ( approx 40 years) supplying a range of utility power generators, fuelled by Gas, Coal, Nuclear, biomass conversions is popular just now, and we even will provide wind turbines. I am fairly aware of the pros and cons of each.

We had a after work talk from the grid guys a while back, and it was interesting to hear what they thought of the various options, particularly the load following potential (of the New Nuclear stations as a backup for wind. ( and the issues)

A more recent talk was the Fusion reactors for the future.
The young PHD chap I was talking to, said he would be retired before they get one running commercially. The testing alone is planned to last 20+ years.

In reply to jonnie3430:

Maybe but they can also be taken down (and it will be in the EIA that they are,) once they are no longer needed.
(They may remove the turbines above the ground , but will they remove the millions of tonnes of concrete poured into the foundations?)

So if you really want to change something, get keen on nuclear fusion...
(See my other post to Neil)

In reply to Neil Adams:

(although your 25% capacity factor is a bit pessimistic!).

>what are you figures that dispute this ?

Where did you obtain them?

I don't think I am being unfair, but I am happy to look at any other data that you say makes the 25% load factor pessimistic.

A quick Google comes up with this link which seems to support that figure. There are others of course.
Page 24
http://www.ref.org.uk/attachments/article/280/ref.hughes.19.12.12.pdf

The graphs on the performance of offshore looks more encouraging ( page 12) but the drop off is shocking with age, meaning that the cost of maintenance of offshore to keep them productive will be horrendous.

In reply to IainRUK:


I have not said no to any of these ( I earn my living from all of the above) That does not mean I cannot criticise the propaganda that is put out in support of some of these over others.


You may think I 'snipe' away on a computer Iain, but just maybe I do more on a daily basis to keep the lights on in this country than you do.

It is ok for YOU to snipe away at me, what are YOU doing to help the situation?

In reply to Jim C:

What propaganda?

I never understood the opposition to large off shore wind farms, for me as a marine biologists it's win win.. energy and fishing free areas..

Me, I don't.. I use power, I think we need power. I'm all for investment in renewables, I don't think it is all there yet but we have a price to pay for power.

If that is the odd flooded glen then fair enough, to be honest I don't think they detract that much from the landscape. It's already massively altered, some more to provide a source of energy which is renewable I'm all for tbh.

I think we need more pump storage schemes so supported the one in Wales.

In reply to Jim C:
"I also like the way they say that it:-
"will have the 'potential ' to provide up to 10% of Scotland's estimated peak electricity demand."

Indeed!
For how long ? ( the water runs out)"

I don't understand your point here.. as I take it the plant provides power at peak demand times, half time in the world cup final, dinner time.. those sort of periods by nature.

In reply In reality who does it affect ?It will always be somebody at least companies are investing money in the local economy ,which is needed .

In reply to rallymania:

Much needed I'm afraid. We need more energy available at short notice due to over reliance on an unreliable generation method.
It's crazy large scale hydro hasn't been expanded before now, without it we are relying on gas, often in less efficient open cycle plant. Yes it has an impact on the environment but its environmental cost:benefit ratio is far better than the other renewables available.

Cruchan can be expanded by extending the catchment area further (no mods to the dam or plant). There were originally plans for a larger catchment area (but not significantly), presumably it wasn't cost effective at the time. Only 10% of cruchans water is supplied by the catchment, it is primarily a pumped storage setup.

My two pence: Nuclear is currently the only low CO2 method capable of supplying a meaningful amount of power for baseload, pick your poison, nuclear waste or CO2. Hydro is excellent for meeting peaks and wind is a complete waste of space.

In reply to IainRUK:
My point Iain, is that as we rely more and more on renewables, we will have an ever increasing peak demand deficit to fill.

There is a limit to the number of these schemes to fulfil that increasing deficit demand, they are also hugely expensive, so the cost of the generation of renewables, has to take these additional costs in the overall costs of generation by renewables.

I would venture that we could possibly be better off spending the huge amount of money that would be needed to be put into renewables, for a pretty poor, unreliable output, on cleaning up coal.

It too will take a huge of money to reduce the emissions , but the energy generated per pound spent on the clean up of coal, may still be cheaper than the costs of relying on inefficient renewables, which is not just the cost of the equipment and operating and maintaining it, there are huge on-costs that are not taken into account by those supporting this technology.

Renewables has it's place, ( a small one until the storage problem is resolved) but you only have to look at those who have been down this path 20 years ahead of us, and with more favourable geography, who have failed to make renewables cost effective.

In reply to Jim C:

I went to a talk on fusion too. Potential to use back end nuclear waste (20% I think) as fuel, pretty revolutionary power source. 20+ years!!! though, flippin heck.

In reply to yarbles:

pick your poison, nuclear waste or CO2. Hydro is excellent for meeting peaks and wind is a complete waste of space.

I would not get too hung up on the Nuclear waste issue, the new generation of Nuclear stations ( Hinckley) will not produce as much waste as the old inefficient Nuclear stations currently being decommissioned, a lot of it being handled at Sellafield,( and a lot of it is military waste. )

If we did not already a lot of waste to handle, one might question creating even the little more that will be generated in the new stations.

As it is, we will be adding a molehill to an existing mountain.

The strike price that the government gas agreed with EDF is rather more of a concern. We are going to pay through the nose for the French government to run our New Nuclear programme.

In reply to IainRUK:



You did not look at the graphs I provided the link to I gather Iain ( or you dispute it ?)

Try the graph page 11 to start with.
http://www.ref.org.uk/attachments/article/280/ref.hughes.19.12.12.pdf
The load factor of offshore Wind drops dramatically from an encouraging 40% to only 15% in only 10 years .So diminishing returns, with increased maintenance. Costs, and they have a limited life in this environment.

'Win win' Iain , I don't think so , just yet more propaganda , with no data to back up such a statement , (and you are an academic too,) yet you make statements in support of a technology that you offer no figures to back them up.

Please provide some data in support of your win-win statement please

In reply to Jim C:

google scholar it..

http://scholar.google.de/scholar?hl=de&q=environmental+benefits+wind+fa...

In reply to rallymania:

Geothermal is the future, but you need some stop gaps before you get there, as long as you can put some turbines up there you can take em down.

In reply to IainRUK:

eh? which one? These articles are mostly about birds. Also, if you type 'benefits' into your search you are causing a bias in the results shown. Neutral words such as feasibility would give more fair results.

In reply to Jim C:


Not sure I necessarily agree. Whilst newer stations are far more efficient than old ones, waste will still be an issue. Hinkley C is designed to be able to utilise MOX fuel, and if you go down that route you need to reprocess. Reprocessing produces huge amounts of highly active waste, as well as being bloody expensive.

As regards a lot of waste being military, I take it that's based on the Magnox reactors initially being a bomb project, rather than the power generation aspect?

In reply to Jim C:

Yes, they seem to be haggling a v good deal. Few months back they said they were walking away and said government shat itself, now it seems they have agreed a price on par with wind, bit concerning considering the quantity of it we will be using!

EDF know full well we are backed into a corner. Leccy bills will be going up dramatically.

In reply to yarbles:


They're going to do that regardless, and the price agreed with EDF doesn't look so bad compared to where energy prices are going.

I would happily pay 2x my current gas and electricity bills to see the money spent on new fission plants instead of coal or wind.

I wish they'd renew or replace the existing power stations that have served Scotland well. We're heading into a period of eye wateringly high energy prices without the supply being stable - thanks to the drive for renewables. Give me several compact power stations rather than thousands of visually intrusive ugly wind turbines on land or at sea.

There are a quite a few greedy people making a lot of money out of renewables.

In reply to Ridge:


What is the % of MOX that is actually 'waste ' that has then to be stored?( and not a usable fuel)
( agree reprocessing to produce more useful fuel. iS expensive, but at least the UK are the ones charging to do it, so although we will be paying EDF for the electricity, some cash will flow back in the reprocessing


Whilst that is true, I was alluding to Cold War weapons there is a lot of military waste around the world.